The Bear and Barnacle

As anxious as Holmes was to test his new formula, he knew that using anesthetic gas on men on ladders and wielding acetylene torches would be detrimental, if not downright dangerous. So he went to the pub. ( Read more... )

She accepts the bit of cake with thanks when Ivonka pokes it onto her table, only looking up to be polite, then dives back into her reading. She's surrounded by three painful-looing books, a half-drunk cup of tea, and a thick diary of notes, heavily scrawled with marginal cross-references and thickly drawn arrows, abloom with question marks. Occasionally she turns a page or two; less frequently, she inks her quill and makes an abbreviated entry.

As she nibbles the brownie, however, the page-turns grow less frequent, and she goes from book to notes more often, as though she's having trouble focusing.

After about ten minutes, she reaches up and pulls a couple of bobby pins from her hair, shaking it out so it falls down her back. It's still thick and heavy and surprisingly long, though the black has been heavily ribboned with grey for fifteen years now. She also appears to have been reading the same paragraph for quite a while now.

Soon she gives up and sits back in her chair, taking a sip from her teacup and grimacing to find it stone cold, finding herself a little more able, at the moment, to focus on people-watching than her endless frustrating research.

The Joker, oddly enough, is wearing dark slacks and a grey sweatshirt. Despite the fact that the weather is warming, he is wearing a beanie cap and a scarf is pulled up around the lower half of his face. His normal makeup is conspicously missing, instead heavy flesh tones are spread to try to reduce the glaring appearance of the scars. He is uncomfortable like this, visible without the mask, but a man has to eat and maybe if he's less obvious and hides in the shadow and doesn't see Ivonka face to face, she won't throw him out and he can have a warm meal.

He is sliding quietly toward a dark table when the free brownie display catches his eyes. His tongue darts out to lick his lips. How can he resist chocolate and sugar? He takes one and munches, making a contented little noise. Glancing around, he grabs several more brownies before finding a seat.

A short time and several quickly eaten brownies later, he's feeling even more cheerful than usual. The scarf slips off, forgetten, and he begins chuckling to himself at some internal joke. Oh, he knows. He tasted something different right from the start, but couldn't resist them. Maybe he should have stopped himself after 2, rather than the four he's now consumed...

A few more minutes pass, and he's lying across the table, shaking his head, laughing, and muttering under his breath. "She's good, so very good, a worthy advesary..." he should have noticed that the other patrons were acting slightly off when he came in "...hahahahehe...this is a GREAT joke, what a prank...hehahohoho...oh, you are a WONDERFUL woman, you...HAHAHehohohaHAHAHA..."

Victoire has done a lot of things in her 18 years. Not all of them legal and many of them worthy of her curse-breaking, prisoner-releasing, drug-toking, brother-shagging father... though he's presumably not done any of those things since marrying Victoire's Maman. At least, not that Victoire's caught him at and she most certainly has been watching for any and all of it.

There was the very profitable underground business at Hogwarts, selling her (and Teddy's) undergarments. And her talent at Charms and Potions which were not always used as Professors Flitwick and Snape intended when they taught them to a class of eager students and one very creative part-Veela. And then there was the very naked night in the barn behind Shell Cottage with Teddy, two of her cousins, and her cousin's girlfriend. Not to mention the myriad ways she'd arranged, maneuvered, convinced, guided, bribed, coerced, encouraged, persuaded, threatened, enticed anyone she could to get just what she wanted and more or less when she wanted it. She was a Slytherin after all, and very proud to be one.

But she's never actually attacked anyone with the intent to reduce them into nothingness.

Until now. Until she eats one of Ivonka's brownies and realised that it is the cause of the sudden mellowness she feels, the easy smile which curves her lips, and her overall lack of concern about the free flashes of pale blue lace she is giving the pub.

But when she puts these things together and realises what was happening and who is behind it, she snaps. Eyes flashing with an unnatural blue fire, she storms into the kitchen and corners the smirking cook who after a moment has the grace to look moderately surprised by the rage she is facing just before Victoire throws herself at the woman and starts clawing at her, fingertips stuttering over the skin as they stick and release and stick again, while the pots start to rattle ominously.

Jack's one and only drug experience was in 1940, on the boat from Canada to London. He was sitting on the deck sharing cheap whiskey with four other pilots, two of whom would live to become known to history and two of whom, like Jack, would later die in action. Someone (he didn't later remember which one) produced a twist of newspaper full of white powder.

There was a brief stir, then Jack - eternal straight man, good listener, the man you ask when you need a loan till payday, and the only one present who hadn't lied baldly about his age or experience to get into the RAF - said, "What the hell. You know what the life expectancy is for us now?"

All of them laughed. It wasn't in the least funny, but they were young, and high on risk and glory, and about to get higher.

Halfway through the brownie, Jack suddenly recognizes that I-know-this-isn't-funny-but-it-actually-is feeling.

He stares at the bit of brownie for a long, long moment, then lifts his head to stare at Ivonka. She stares back, wearing that mess-with-me-and-I'll-make-you-suffer look. Jack smiles at her. She rolls her eyes.

Zelgadis is across the table from Jack, trying once again to convince Val that he can't bring his rat to the Pub. Val is too absorbed in the debate to have touched his brownie. Jack slides it from him to Zel.

"Just eat it," he says to Zel's questioning look and Val's protesting squeak, and chuckles. "Something tells me this one's not for Val."

There’s been an unruly crowd in the pub of late, Ivonka thinks grimly.

With Iago vacationing she’s been managing the place herself in the evenings – she has a vested interest in keeping the business alive, since cooking here pays well and she can do more or less as she wishes. Ivonka worked out what was going on in Margate within a week of starting work at the Bear and Barnacle. Ivonka takes nothing from anyone. And Ivonka has decided the time has come to enact her twisted power over the pub.

She removes the tray of brownies from the oven to cool while she gets out dessert plates, enough for everyone in the restaurant. She’s baking in the back kitchen, and for a reason.

A few minutes later, she sets down a row of plates on the bar and takes up the chalk to write on the “Specials” board. FREE BROWNIES FOR ALL, she writes.

And there are indeed free brownies.

Ivonka knows how to make them taste just as delicious as regular brownies, too.



You can never have too much illicit drug use. Tag for the month is "special brownies." Have fun.